2020:820 - TOWNPARKS (Clonmacnowen By. - Ballinasloe), Galway, Galway

In May 2020, a human femur was identified on the southern side of Society Street (Townparks), Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, during the course of monitoring of works for the Water Services Infrastructure Upgrade and Town Enhancement Scheme (Licence No. 18E0405). Further investigation found that a quantity of articulated and disarticulated remains, possible grave cuts, and a semi-circular or C-shaped stone wall were located immediately beneath the modern concrete footpath there. About fifty years previously, a skeleton (GA088-049) had been discovered by ESB workers on the street and reported to the National Museum of Ireland.
During the course of this excavation, ten articulated burials in varying states of preservation were uncovered, as well as a large quantity of disarticulated human bone.  Specialist analysis indicated that at least eighteen individuals were present, comprising adult males and females, young adults, juveniles and two pre-term infants, who may have been twins. All the in-situ burials were under forty-five years of age. The burials and disarticulated human remains represented the remains of a cemetery, which appears to have been detrimentally impacted by modern utility services as well as the construction of Society Street during the eighteenth and nineteenth/early twentieth centuries.
Bone fragments from two individuals from the cemetery were submitted for radiocarbon dating, The dates returned indicated that the cemetery was in use during the period 1477-1800AD. A sample of bone from Skeleton 10 was dated to 337±28 BP calibrated to 1477-1638 AD, Skeleton 4 was dated to 259±28 BP calibrated to 1520-1800AD.